The competition in Japan was a point ranking system, and the harder the trick -- the more points earned.

"So you've got big cup, small cup, base cup, spike," he said.

The player who accumulates the most points in three minutes wins.

Schelling finished fourth in the Worlds, and, in fact, Americans swept the top five spots.

After buying a few cheap ones on the Internet and finding they fell apart after about an hour, Mikey and his father, Craig, decided to buy good ones and sell them online.

"We got the first order in and the first weekend it just, it went nuts," said Craig Schelling, co-owner of Lion Head Kendama. "He took some to school, and everybody was buying them, they were coming over the house buying them, you know, wanted some for Christmas, so it just kind of blew up."

The father and son opened a kiosk at Newgate Mall, and they now have kiosks in Utah, Idaho and Oregon.